Thomas Jane reveals first plot details for Shane Black’s The Predator

Nobody knows what the future holds, but I can tell with 100% certainty what we definitely won’t have in 2018: Time to bleed! Next year, writer/director Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3, The Nice Guys) will be bringing back everybody’s favourite extraterrestrial hunter/intergalactic frisbee champion with The Predator, the upcoming fourth instalment (not counting the AVP movies) in the franchise kickstarted with John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger muscley 1987 sci-fi action classic.

Black actually had a minor role in that film and did a whole lot of uncredited script doctoring on it so he definitely knows his way around the franchise. It has been reported that his new R-rated sequel will be taking place in modern day 2018, between the events of 1990’s Predator 2 and 2010’s Predators, and we know that the cast features Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Sterling K. Brown. Olivia Mun, Jacob Tremblay, Yvonne Strahovski, Alfie Allen and Thomas Jane. And that was it. That was all the info we had.

At least that was the case before this week as Thomas Jane has now spilt some beans during an interview with Shadow Nation (via DenofGeek), giving us a basic plot breakdown for The Predator.

We play these veterans from like Afghanistan, Iraq war or whatever. But we’re all fucking crazy so we go to the VA hospital to get our meds. We’re all like shellshocked, PTSD…soldiers. We’re at the VA hospital and we’re in group therapy and of course, somebody flips out…this is backstory, I don’t think we really see this…somebody flips out and we all get arrested and get thrown onto the bus to go down to the hospital and they throw this other guy on the bus too.

And he’s a guy they’ve actually marked to kill him because he’s seen a UFO, he’s seen the Predator ships come down so they lock him up and throw him in with us lunatics. They’re going to take that bus, drive it down to a ditch and shoot us all just to get rid of this one guy. But, of course, we take the bus over and we’re all like “Fuck that man, let’s go kill these fucking Predators ourselves” and we’re just crazy enough to believe that this guy really did see a UFO and there’s these aliens out there. So that’s kinda cool!

I actually like the sound of that. Yes, we won’t be getting the intense testosterone driven macho-fest of the original, but this seems right up Black’s alley of quippy action heroes who get the job done no matter what. Jane confirmed this later in the interview, also seemingly dropping the fact that despite the singular nature of the film’s title, there may be more than one alien hunter on the prowl here.

[It] has that kind of Shane Black humour. We had a blast. It was funny. You know the Predators, they looked… you know they didn’t fuck those up. They’re still Predators and they’re pretty much the same Predator as always. I think it might be great.

It has to be noted though that Jane could just be referring to multiple actors playing one Predator or even multiple Predator suits. Either way, this info dump from the actor actually lends some context now to the first set pic that Black tweeted out earlier in the year, showing some of the cast looking pensive in the back of a bus.

Stone killers with serious acting chops — but which of them will be chopped… by THE PREDATOR? (See what I did there?) pic.twitter.com/H5lOw2K5vy

Filming for The Predator actually wrapped up in June already with the film now in post-production, so hopefully it won’t be too long before we get a look at these “stone killers” in action with a trailer. It probably won’t be more than a brief teaser though, as we are still a very long way off from the film’s scheduled release date of 3 August 2018.

A man of many passions - but very little sleep - I've been geeking out over movies, video games, comics, books, anime, TV series and lemon meringues as far back as I can remember. So show up for the geeky insight, stay for the delicious pastries.

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